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The Aurora Blu-ray Player is decent software for playing a variety of video types on your computer if you don't want to spend too much cash or buy a physical Blu-ray player. Though it lacks some features and requires high CPU usage, it is a respectable player for those who don't want any frills for watching a movie.

You can play a wide variety of media types with this Blu-ray player software, not just your cherished Blu-ray and DVD collection but also newer digital video files. Additionally, it works for both Windows and Mac operating systems.

This is a great standard player if you just want to watch movies and don't care about having the optimal audio. While it does have Dolby and DTS support, it does not have lossless audio playback, which we were disappointed to see in our testing. It also has no HD or 3D upscaling capabilities.

This Blu-ray player software consumed about 48 percent of the CPU power during our test, which means that if you want to watch a video while surfing the internet or performing other tasks, your computer may struggle with this. However, if you just want to watch a movie and nothing else, you'll be fine. For comparison, the lightest program on system resources was Leawo Blu-ray Player at just four percent.

Despite requiring high CPU usage to run, this digital video player offers no power manager function to conserve laptop battery power or energy. Another helpful feature it lacks is smart connectivity with your phone, which you can use as a remote control with some Blu-ray software. However, it is touchscreen compatible for those using Windows 8 or 10, and you have the option to customize the player skin.

You can tweak audio and picture quality settings for each video you watch for optimized viewing, and you can change the player's region as needed. The auto-resume playback remembers where you left off in a movie and resumes playing from that point next time you want to watch that particular movie. You can also toggle subtitles as needed, if the disc or file has that feature.

Should you ever have questions or concerns about the software, you can contact Aurora Software via email. In case you don't want to talk to a representative directly, Aurora offers other resources for you to access on your own, such as a knowledgebase where you can learn more about the software. It also has tutorials that help you use certain aspects of the movie player software.

The Aurora Blu-ray Player software does a decent job of playing a wide variety of physical and digital video types, and it gives you control over some audio and picture quality settings. Though it has no upscaling or power-saving capabilities and doesn't allow virtual remote-control connectivity, it works well for those who don't care about technical details and just want to watch a movie from their laptop.